How to Protect Your Employees From COVID-19 Scams

COVID-19 is already straining our healthcare systems. However, it is also affecting the cybersecurity of companies. Hackers are using COVID-19 for scamming people around the world. They are using the fear of COVID-19 for scamming people. There are many attackers that are sending fake emails to people. These emails contain malware or ransomware. Global pandemics are a perfect time for cybercriminals for launching phishing attacks. They are trying various different tricks for scamming people. Your employee might end up opening one bogus email. This bogus email can ultimately lead to a data breach. Thus, it is important to protect your organizations from COVID-19 scams. In this article, we are going to share some tips that will help you in protecting your employees.

1. Conduct cybersecurity training

The best way to protect your employees is by training them. It is best to have security-savvy employees. They will help you in protecting your business from phishing attacks. You should create a security training program for your employees. The COVID-19 is forcing everyone to embrace remote work. Thus, your employees can’t attend offline training. You should use online learning platforms. Your IT department already knows about basic cybersecurity practices. Thus, they can teach your other employees.

You need to ensure that your security education is not formal or boring. If your training is boring, then your employees will not learn anything. You need to create interesting lessons for them.

Your training should cover all the best security practices. However, you should not stop at the theory. You should conduct some practice drills. Also, your employees should know how to notice suspicious emails.

2. Do Proper Planning

CISA has released an amazing guideline for organizations. These guidelines will help you in preparing for the COVID-19 risks. The virtualization is increasing due to this pandemic. Thus, there are many unique challenges that you need to address. Most of your employees will be working from home. Thus, you should use tools like VPN for protecting your organization data. This will ensure that only your employees are accessing your data. Also, make sure that your employees are using a private internet connection. If they are using a public connection, then hackers can easily intercept their connection. The best way to tackle this is by using a secure VPN connection.

3. Verify every email

It is important to stay updated during this pandemic. Thus, you should get updates about COVID-19 from official and trusted sources. Also, you should ensure that your staff members are getting information from official sources. Many attackers will send phishing emails to your employee inbox. These emails will contain COVID-19 related subjects. Also, these emails will contain attachments and hyperlinks. Your employees should ignore these emails. They should only get the information from official sources.

4. Teach your employees about phishing

Hackers are mostly using phishing for hacking into companies. This is the most common hacking attack. Thus, it is also easy to avoid. You should teach your employees about the phishing attacks. They should know how to identify these phishing emails. Hackers are going to use COVID-19 for sharing fake emails. These emails might look legitimate. Thus, it can be very difficult to find red flags.

You should look for poor formatting in these phishing emails. Legitimate companies will always use good formatting in their emails. There will be no typos in these legitimate emails. Also, companies will always start with a specific greeting. If there is only general information in an email, then it is a phishing email. You can also check the email address of the sender. If they are using an imposter email address, then it is a fake email. Legitimate companies will never send you attachments. Thus, you should never download any attachments. These attachments will mostly contain malware.

You should teach all the basics of the phishing attack on your employees. It is also important to test their skills. You can show them example emails. They have to identify legit emails. This will help you in engaging with your employees. Also, your employees will learn more things about fake emails.

5. Use a VPN or Virtual Private Network

If your employees are working from home, then you should give them a VPN account. VPN will help them in securing their connection. Thus, it will help you in protecting your corporate data. There are many corporate VPNs available in the market. You can use these VPNs for protecting your employees. Corporate VPNs will protect your employees from malware attacks and phishing. Thus, they are pretty similar to corporate firewalls. However, you can’t use corporate firewalls if your employees are working remotely. Thus, this is the best method to protect them.

6. Provide clear guidance

You need to establish clear policies for your employees. Make sure that your employees can easily follow the remote working policies. This will help you in empowering your employees. Also, you should help them in creating a secure environment. Your IT department must communicate with your employees. They should help them in updating their applications. Also, your employees must inform your security team about any suspicious activity. You should also ask your employees to use a strong password. There are many amazing password managers available in the market. Your employees can use these password managers for creating a strong password. These password managers will store these passwords. Thus, they don’t need to worry about remembering their passwords. This will protect your company from brute force attacks.

Conclusion

Hackers are using this global pandemic for scamming people. It is important to protect your organizations from these attacks. These tips will help you in protecting your employees. Your employees should know the basics of phishing attacks. This will protect them from phishing scams. You should also provide them a VPN connection. They can use VPN for connecting with your network. This VPN will protect your network from unauthorized access. The threats are evolving with time. Thus, you need to make sure that your organization is protected from these cyber threats. If you need more security tips, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.